


Ingénue/Dancing in the Dark

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Celebrations, Dancing, Drunk Dancing, Festivals, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Light Angst, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: And insight into Din's complicated feelings for you
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	Ingénue/Dancing in the Dark

You reckon you’ve seen most of the galaxy by now. The Razor Crest has touched down on so many new planets, surely there can’t be more? You once asked Din how many he’d been to and he replied that he didn’t have enough fingers to count with. For the millionth time since your accidental meeting him, you stared at him in awe. 

Din is quite a modest person in general, but prior to meeting you, he’d never once been shy in his actions or words. Where once he was confident, now he hesitates because he dislikes this hero complex you’ve categorized him in. A hero is the last thing he is, but he also doesn’t have the heart to tell you otherwise.

In the grey area that is his black and white life, he’s becoming revered across the stars as this mysterious paragon of altruism. Such a statement couldn’t be further from the truth. When they happen upon a more densely populated planet, the locals are beginning to recognize him. Beginning to trust in him to defeat some foe or other. 

With your selfless nature and naive determination to always set things right, he has a hard time saying no. Even though he desperately wants to because what happens when he inevitably fails? The locals will distrust him, perhaps even ban him, but he can deal with those things. Always has. But you? He would… die… if your perfect, little image you’ve created of him were to shatter. 

As selfish and vain as it sounds, he relishes in this untainted view you have of him. Everyone always sees him, sees his beskar and either runs or fights. You… dance. You’re always dancing. To music or no music, it doesn’t matter. Din can’t even remember how many times he’s come back from a hunt only to walk in on you twirling and spinning around the cargo hold. 

Everything about you is like a refreshing drink of water; he hadn’t even known it, but he’d been parched for so long and now the more he travels with you the less quenched he feels. Terribly ironic. Perhaps he’s addicted to you and your innocence. But not the dangerous way, the way where he just wants to keep you safe in his arms forever because the universe is a mean, brutal place. 

He doesn’t want your purity ruined. Because it would also ruin him. He knows that makes him selfish, knows he has done nothing to deserve you. It’s a vicious chain of cause and effect.

Yet, sitting here underneath four, celestially bright moons, blazing bonfires as far as the eye can see until they’re just a tiny, orange speck in the distance, Din easily forgets all the noise inside his head. 

You’re ahead of him some ways, directly in his line of sight. To the tribal beat of tambourines, drums, and whistling instruments, you step every which way, hips gyrating and arms up as you dance. Your eyes are closed, simply feeling the music with a wide smile and hands mussing through your hair that Din wishes were his. 

It’s… oddly erotic to him, but he would never admit that to you. Not now, at least, before the two of you have even explored whatever is between you. There’s  _ something _ , that much is obvious. Admittedly, to everyone but the two of you at first. 

Din’s taking things slowly because he’s afraid. Afraid that you’re not real, that all of this is just some cruel dream and he’ll wake back up alone in the Razor Crest as he’d done so many years before. He wants to savor things, to drag them out as far as he can in the worst case that his fears are confirmed. 

If this is death—being at peace with you and the Child, no worries or fears, the unmistakable feeling of invincibility—then he can’t wish for it sooner. 

As if you can feel his gaze roving over your form illuminated by the white of the moons and orange of the fires, your eyes open and find their way to the slit of his helmet. He can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks as you’ve caught him hopelessly staring once again. He wonders if the armor has made him far too readable for someone in his profession. 

You can’t see his face, but that doesn’t mean the shy turning away from you towards the ground doesn’t shout just as loudly. Gloved fingers idly picking at the grass beneath him, suddenly there are two feet strapped into old sandals now blurry in his peripheral. His head tilts up to found you smiling down at him with a hand outstretched.

“Would you like to dance with me?”

Din switches from looking to your hand to your face and back before replying, “I don’t dance.”

Your smile doesn’t falter in the least. “Tonight you do. Please?”

Resist seems futile when he’s with you. 

Next thing he knows, he’s being pulled to his feet, dragged through a raucous crowd, and standing there awkwardly in the midst of dancing bodies. He knows how to dance, he just doesn’t… often, if ever. He feels like a child scared of judgment—he doesn’t wish to make a fool of himself in front of you. 

“C’mon, Mando!” you shout, giggling as you twirl your way around him, “Spread your arms, move your feet, nod your head!”

You look so beautiful being as happy as you are to him. 

He lets you grab his hand, lets you spin underneath it before falling straight into his arms. He welcomes your body, sways involuntarily as he holds you as the music slows to a more legato sound. Looking down, there isn’t a sight more precious than you with your head resting against his armored chest, eyes closed and peaceful as if you’re right where you’re supposed to be. 

~ ~ ~

Later, after a night full of celebration and the little one has been put down, the two of you find yourselves still reeling from the festivities. Din with a restless anticipation for something he’s too afraid to act on and you tipsy from one too many drinks. He finds it endearing the way you babble on and on and stare at every intimate detail once you find something of interest. 

Currently, that ‘something of interest’ is him. 

“How’d you come across that much beskar, anyway?” you wonder, face far too close for someone who has fair eyesight. 

Din is discovering your close proximity makes it increasingly difficult to breathe properly. “This wasn’t even all of it. The rest I gave to the covert.”

“Heroic of you.” Your finger is tracing the hard lines of his bracer, the other hand splayed flat against his chest plate in an attempt to stay upright. Then your face, previously focused on following your finger, trails up his body to the slits of his helmet as if you could see straight into his soul. “Does it ever pain you when someone expresses their desire to see your face?”

The typical silence of the ship has now turned deafening. “Only when I care about them.”

“Do you care about me?

“Are you expressing your desire to see my face?”

“Yes.”

“Then… yes.”

A look of deep sorrow falls like a shadow across your face, though a smile still grows in opposition. “I apologize.” A beat. “Would you like to finish our dance from earlier?”

His heart fluttering deep within his chest is becoming a common occurrence. “There’s no music.”

“There’s the beating of our hearts.”

“Okay… but let me do something first.” He’s moving away from you towards the panel on the wall and you watch in confusion as he flips a switch that abruptly swathes the room in darkness. Then there’s a soft  _ hiss  _ and a small thump of something being set onto the floor before Din’s hands are grasping yours. “You can’t see me, but you can feel me.”

You are wholly unprepared to feel the warmth of bare skin when he brings your hands to his face. Smooth cheeks, slight stubble where facial hair grows, plump lips (and you briefly allow yourself to wonder what they might feel like against yours). Your hands travel up, trailing a ghost of an intimacy Din hasn’t felt in so long, gliding over his eyebrows, up his forehead, and into the unruly hair he’s long given up on maintaining. 

“You are beautiful,” you whisper in awe.

Heat rises up his neck to his cheeks once again and he can’t fight the smile breaking through. “I disagree. That title belongs to you.”

You giggle. “Come.” Your hand gently pushes his head so he’s situated in the junction of your neck. “Let us dance.”

Limbs wrapped tightly around one another, bodies intimately close, the two of you sway together under the cover of darkness to the rhythm of simply being alive.


End file.
